Longarm and the Last Man

“I can take them dishes back, Mr. Long,” Buddy offered.

“Those dishes,” his mother corrected.

“Yes M.”

“Thanks for the offer, son, but I have to go right past there anyway.”

“Could I help you carry them then? I’m strong, you know. I can help.”

“All right. That sounds fair.” Longarm figured the boy probably wanted to help pull his weight. Possibly his mama had spoken to him about that before Longarm returned that evening. Whatever, there was no reason why he couldn’t carry some of the stuff if he wanted to. “That all right with you, Miz Fulton? I’ll send him right back in case you need anything before I come in for the night.”

“I’m fine here. Really.”

“Good. Buddy, you can go ahead an’ gather up the rest of the things. I’ll take the tray an’ you can carry that pail there.”

Not the least bit shy about the open display of affection, Buddy kissed his mother goodbye, then he and Longarm took the soiled containers and whatnot that Longarm had brought from the cafe, carrying them out into the young night.

It wasn’t late, but the night air was cool and pleasant. The sky was cloudless, and the stars were as brilliant as far-off gas lamps overhead. Longarm noticed the stars, but Buddy paid them no mind.

“Mr. Long?”

“Yes, son?”

“Do you like my ma?”

“Yes, I do, Buddy. Quite a lot.”

“She likes you too, you know. She told me she does.”

Longarm smiled. He shifted the tray he was carrying into the crook of one arm so he’d have a hand free, then reached over and tousled the boy’s hair so as to take any sting away from what he had to say. He could see what was coming—which explained why Buddy’d been so eager to help carry the dinner stuff this evening—and wanted to head it off before the youngster got to counting on things that wouldn’t ever happen.

“I like your mama a lot, Buddy. But there’s something I want you to know. The way I like her—and for that matter the way she likes me too, I’m sure—it ain’t the same kind of liking that a man and a woman have for each other when they go to getting married.”

“Oh.”

“The way I like your mama, and her back to me, is the kind of liking real good friends have for each other. Where we want good things for the other person an’ will do whatever we can to help see that that’s so. But not where we’d want to live together forever and ever as man an’ wife. You understand?”

“Kinda like me and Peppy?” the boy suggested.

Longarm smiled. “That ain’t exactly how I’d’ve thought to put it. But I suppose you could say that it’s kinda that way. Nice an’ friendly but not … you know.”

“No, sir, I don’t know. Not if you’re talking about the stuff grown men do with women.” He made a sour face. “That damn Rick, he says men put their pizzles in girls’ poop holes and pee inside there. Is that true, Mr. Long?”

Longarm laughed. He probably shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help it. He ruffled Buddy’s hair again and said, “No, son, that isn’t even close to being true. An’ if I can make a suggestion, don’t pay too much attention to what all Rick tells you in the future. That boy don’t know half as much as he thinks he does.”

Buddy looked mighty relieved to hear that from a grown-up he obviously had come to trust. “That’s good, Mr. Long. But I think …”

Longarm never would know what Buddy thought.

The night was illuminated by a sheet of yellow flame that blossomed across the street to their right, and the peaceful quiet of the evening was shattered by the bellowing roar of a shotgun blast.

Little Buddy, walking between Longarm and the gun, cried out and lurched sideways, stumbling into Longarm and knocking Longarm’s gun arm askew before the boy fell to the ground.

Bowls, dishes, and small containers crashed to the ground as tray and pail alike were abandoned in midair, and with a flash of rage every bit as quick and every bit as deadly as that shotgun blast had been, Longarm clawed his Colt from his holster and dropped flat an instant before the second shotshell charge exploded from the mouth of an alley.

Chapter 26

As Longarm hit the ground he fired two quick shots about belt level in the direction the shotgun blasts had come from, and then quickly rolled to the side.

He was half blinded by the bright muzzle flashes. But so was the other guy, he figured.

A third gunshot came from the alley mouth, this one a much smaller flare of fire and a much lighter, sharper report. A revolver that would be, or a very small-caliber rifle. The flash came from the opposite side of the alley, not where the shotgun had been. So either the man with the empty shotgun had moved to avoid Longarm’s return fire, or there were two of them over there doing the shooting.

Longarm had no idea who was there or how many, but he saw no reason to take any chances. He triggered the big Colt again, one shot into the side of the alley where the small-caliber weapon had just fired, and another into the black, empty space where the shotgun had been moments earlier.

He would have appreciated a scream or maybe the sound of a body falling to the earth, but all he got was silence. Nearby little Buddy had begun to cry. Longarm hated that. But he sure as hell couldn’t take time out to comfort a kid or tend to his wounds, no matter what.

Longarm rolled again to get away from gunfire directed toward his muzzle flashes, then quickly shucked the empty brass from his revolver and thumbed fresh cartridges into the cylinder.

He blinked, trying to hurry the return of his night vision.

Well before he’d had time enough to begin to see properly again he was on his feet and, bent low to the ground, darted crab-like across the street, moving swiftly from one side to the other while he ran toward the alley where those shots had originated. He reached the corner of the building there and stopped to listen.

There was no sound of ragged breathing—few men are cold enough to be able to shoot at someone from ambush without getting worked up about it—but from somewhere deep in the alley he could hear footsteps retreating.

It was a gamble. Those footsteps could be the gunman. Or it could be one of a pair of gunmen while the other waited for Longarm to silhouette himself against the alley mouth. Or shit, the guy at the back of the alley could be some innocent drunk who’d been awakened by the commotion and was trying to get away now while the ambusher, with or without a friend to back him, waited for another shot.

A gamble, all right. If Longarm guessed wrong he could wind up dead. Or else let the attacker get away. Neither of those possibilities very much appealed to him.

Scowling, he took a fresh grip on the Colt, braced himself, and then with a loud roar calculated to startle any remaining ambusher launched himself around the corner and into the alley. He was greeted by … nothing at all. The goddamn alley was empty. The gunman, or gunmen, had gotten clean away.

Longarm took only a few scant seconds to investigate the trash-strewn corridor that contained a stray cat but no other living thing. Then he turned and ran back to Buddy’s side.

“Y’know,” Longarm reflected, “this here house could end up bein’ designated as Cargyle’s new hospital if this keeps up.” He winked at Buddy and, out of the boy’s sight, gave the kid’s mama a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder.

Buddy was propped up on his bed with feather pillows behind and the family’s extra-best-for-company quilt spread over him. He had a plate of cookies on one side of him and a glass of sasparilla soda on the other. He looked, in fact, pretty damn chipper.

The truth was that he’d barely been scratched by a couple of the shotgun pellets, just enough to sting like hell and draw some blood, and now he was making the most of it. By tomorrow noon, Longarm figured, Buddy Fulton would be the number-one hero among the boys of Cargyle, Colorado. Why, any kid who actually got himself shot in a gunfight, and lived to tell about it, would be the awe and the envy of every other kid for miles and miles around. He’d have bragging rights for years to come. And with luck a scar or two to show off whenever the subject came up.

One pellet had sliced across the boy’s right cheek. Another had pinked his upper arm just below the shoulder. A couple more had ripped up his shirt some without doing any harm—although those had sure turned that shirt into a trophy to be fingered and passed around while all the boyish talk was taking place—and a final pellet had hit square in the side of the boy’s head just above his right ear. That one could have been deadly if the range had been just a little shorter, the powder charge just a little heavier, or the size of the pellet itself just a little larger. That one was the only piece of shot Longarm had been able to recover, but it was enough to show him that the shells in the shotgun had been filled with a load suitable for the hunting of ducks, not men.

Longarm judged the shot to be about a number-four size. Good for ducks or foxes but too light for geese … or humans. Birdshot fired from across the street like that Buddy would hardly have been bothered by. Buckshot striking him in the same places would have killed him. All in all the kid could count himself plenty lucky. This way he had all the bravado but damn little of the pain that could’ve come his way.

Longarm made sure Buddy was comfortable—comfortable? hell, he was in his glory—then insisted on helping Angela back into her bed.

Buddy’s mother, quite naturally, had been much more worried about her son than herself. Now, though, with Buddy safely cleaned up, bandaged, and put to bed, she was commencing to look used up. The excitement was too much for a woman with all the healing she still had to do.

“Come along now.”

“But …”

“No, I insist. Really. C’mon now.” Longarm took her by the elbow and tugged and prodded until he got her turned the right way, then poked and hauled on her again until she started moving. “I swear, woman, I’ve had less trouble herding ladrenes.”

“Ladrenes?”

“Cattle that’ve gone back to the brush an’ turned wild. Now quit hanging back on me an’ get yourself inta that bed before I … well, I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to. But I’ll think of something that you won’t like.”

“All right. I’ll be good.” She gave him an impish look—not so easy to do with a face that was mostly purple and black—and looked like she was about to say or do something to test his threat.

Just as quickly she became serious. “Mr. Long … I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’ve done for Eric. If it hadn’t been for you …”

“Angela—xcuse me, I mean Miz Fulton—the truth is, if it hadn’t been for me, there wouldn’t nothing have happened to Buddy. Whoever that was in the alley was shooting at me, not at your son.”

“I know that is true but … you’ve been so kind to both of us. So decent. I only wish there was something I could do to repay you for … everything.”

Lightly, and very gently, he touched her battered cheek and used the ball of his thumb to wipe away the drop of moisture that was beginning to collect and shimmer in the corner of her eye. “I’m the one owes you. Not the other way round.”

She shook her head right vigorously to deny that statement.

“Well, we ain’t gonna fight about it. Now you get back in that bed there. I’m gonna go out again, but I won’t be long.”

“Where?”

“Me an’ Buddy never got those dishes back to the cafe, for one thing,” he said with a smile. “I’ll gather those up, whatever’s left of ‘em, and take ‘em back. Though I don’t expect much. When that gun went off, me an’ Buddy wasn’t thinking about taking care of no dishes, let me tell you. I think the sound of breaking crockery was louder than the shooting for those first few seconds.” He chuckled and winked at her. “And I still gotta check an’ see if that saloon is closed up. That’s what I went out for to begin with, actually, but never got ‘er done. Figured while I was out too I oughta go up an’ tell Chief Bolt about the murder attempt in his town. Not that it’ll do any good, but this way everything will’ve been done by the book. There can’t be no comeback against me for not following the rules an’ keeping the local law informed of what I’m doing in their town.”

Angela nodded. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

He touched her cheek again. “I’ll be careful.” He didn’t mention that, if it was up to him, he’d as soon that son of a bitch in the shadows made another try. Particularly if he was going to use duckshot in the gun. Longarm would thoroughly approve of getting another crack at the guy.

He left Angela in her draped-off bedroom area, and gave Buddy a grin and a chuck under the chin, then let himself out into the night again. By the time his boot heel hit the plank that was laid at the front doorway for a stoop, Longarm’s expression was grim and his gun hand poised in readiness.

Chapter 27

There sure as hell wasn’t much worth taking back to the cafe where they’d made up the supper. He gathered up what he could, though, and returned it along with payment for the broken stuff.

He also borrowed a lantern from the man who ran the cafe and took another, better look in the alley where the guy with the shotgun had hidden.

Longarm found exactly what he expected to see there. Not a damn thing.

As he was walking back to the cafe to return the lantern, it occurred to him that the shotgunner couldn’t have been waiting there in ambush. Not deliberately, because Longarm himself hadn’t known he would pass that way. It wasn’t something he’d planned on ahead of time, just something that happened after supper. So the gunman must have seen him coming and taken advantage of an opportunity. The son of a bitch!

Longarm was especially pissed because the man had risked killing a kid in his eagerness to get Longarm. It wasn’t like he considered U.S. deputy marshals to be fair game. But there was something especially reprehensible about any man who would shoot with a young’un in the line of fire. It took someone who was really sick or really determined to fire under those conditions. And Longarm had no idea, none, who in Cargyle might carry that virulent a hatred for him. It was something to think about, he reflected.

He returned the lantern to the cafe owner, then drifted past Clete Terry’s saloon. The place was dark and shuttered, the padlock still in place on the front door.

Good. Longarm wasn’t forgetting about that SOB and what he’d done to Angela Fulton. One way or another, he was determined, Terry was going to pay restitution. In full, by damn.

As he walked into the canyon and onto company land, he wondered if Cletus Terry might be the motivating force behind the shooting tonight. It was possible, of course. When you are dealing with incomprehensible, impossible, illogical—and sometimes just plain crazy as hell—human beings, there are no guarantees. Some people will do just damn near anything.

Even so, Longarm didn’t much like Terry as a suspect in this thing. It seemed simply … too much.

There wasn’t that much at stake here, after all. A few hundred bucks’ restitution. That was what Longarm had in mind. That and a public apology. Was that worth killing for? More to the point, was that worth dying for? Cletus Terry was an idiot. But surely he wasn’t that big a fool.

Of course Longarm could be wrong about that, he conceded. But his gut reaction was that he shouldn’t blame this on Clete Terry. Not without some pretty good evidence to the contrary. Which left him with … shit, that’s what it left him with. He kinda wished Terry was the man behind the gun. At least that would be quick and clean and soon done with. In the meantime …

“You again,” Longarm observed with a grin.

The coal miner shrugged and grinned back. “Do a fella a favor, willya, mate? Gimme a drink of water, eh?”

It was the same prisoner Longarm had seen in here two days earlier. The man looked like he hadn’t changed so much as his socks in that time. Certainly he hadn’t bathed. Or, apparently, learned anything.

“I’m looking for Chief Bolt,” Longarm said.

“Still?”

“Again.”

The prisoner shrugged. “Look, are you gonna be a pal and give me a dipper of water or not?”

“Sure,” Longarm said, relenting this time if only because the cantankerous so-and-so hadn’t been willing to spill any information before unless Longarm showed cooperation first.

“There’s a bucket behind the desk there. And while you’re right there anyhow …”

“I know. Your tobacco box is in the drawer.”

The prisoner beamed. “You remember.”

“You’re a hard man to forget. Though I expect I can manage if I set my mind to it.”

The man laughed. And cheerfully accepted both the metal dipper of tepid water Longarm handed him and the twist of tobacco.

“I believe you were saying something about Harry Bolt?”

“Uh-huh. He’s in town. Likely over at that saloon he owns.”

“Which one would that be?”

The miner frowned in thoughtful concentration. “Y’know,” he said after a moment, “if it has a name I don’t b’lieve I’ve ever heard what it is. It’s the biggest down there anyhow. Guy name of Terry runs it for him. Clete Terry.”

Longarm rolled his eyes. Son of a bitch! Clete Terry was a hired hand. And for that asshole Harry Bolt at that. Shee-it! Double shee-it. With honey and walnuts on top.

“You don’t happen to know if there’s living quarters or anything of the like in the back of that saloon, do you?”

“You’re right, mister. I wouldn’t happen to know that. But there’s rooms for the girls to use. I wouldn’t know about the private parts of the place.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would. Look, thanks for the help.”

“Anytime.” The prisoner grinned. “I’m in residence fairly often.”

“Yeah, so I gathered.” Longarm touched the brim of his hat and turned to leave.

He was halfway out the door before something occurred to him, and he turned back inside the Cargyle jail.

“Say, friend.”

“umm?”

“Where’s the other prisoner that’s supposed to be here tonight?”

“That fella with the short hair and the rock-pile sunburn?”

“That’s the one.”

“Bolt turned him loose right after supper.”

“What!” That man was a federal prisoner, dammit. Longarm’s, to be exact. Harry Bolt had no damn right to spring him.

The coal miner certainly saw nothing exceptional about it. Nor would he have any reason to lie. “Bolt opened the cage on him just a little while after I got here. Which I want to tell you was before supper this time. I’m not making that mistake again, thank you. Damn Bolt won’t feed a hungry man if it isn’t on the stroke of his stinking clock.”

A protest that rose in Longarm’s throat was stillborn. After all, it would do no good to squawk and protest to this fella. Only to Harry Bolt. And of course to the ex-con. Damn them both.

He was on his way out the door again when once more a stray thought clutched at his coattails and called him back inside the jail.

“Say, friend.”

“Yeah?”

“This man Harry turned loose. Do you remember what kind of gear he had with him?”

“The clothes on his back, some loose change that I seen Bolt give him out of that drawer there, and a belly gun. Long, thin-looking thing, but I wouldn’t know what kind it was. I can’t say as I know much about guns and stuff like that.”

“Yeah, well, thanks, neighbor. Thanks a lot.”

“Stop by anytime. I’m always glad for the company.”

Longarm touched the brim of his hat again, and this time made it all the way outside and down the road toward town without remembering some reason to go back.

Chapter 28

If Clete Terry or Harry Bolt lived at Bolt’s saloon, Longarm couldn’t see or hear them inside. The place looked completely closed up and empty. Both men had to live someplace, of course. Even a sidewinder has to have a hole to crawl into. But no one Longarm talked to seemed to know where Terry or Bolt crawled in at night.

They didn’t know or wouldn’t tell, that is. After all, it was pretty plain to folks around Cargyle by now that this visitor and their local police chief were on a collision course. And siding with the local law was simple prudence the way Longarm saw it. It wasn’t anything he would go and hold against anyone.

Still, it put a crimp in his wire. There were things he damn sure wanted to ask Harry Bolt about. Starting with just why in hell that ex-convict was walking the streets tonight—or more likely rattling down the railroad tracks miles and miles away by now—when Longarm had put him in jail as a federal prisoner.

Bolt knew better than that. Any wet-behind-the-ears night constable would know better. And Harry Bolt, asshole though he undoubtedly was, had been around for a long time.

No, something was definitely happening here that didn’t set any too well in the gullet. Something that wasn’t at all the way it oughta be.

Still, until he could catch up with Harry Bolt and commence getting some answers, there wasn’t much he could do to unravel the puzzle. He stopped by one of the smaller, and filthier, of the town’s saloons for a nighttime knock, then headed back to the Fulton place. He was more alert than usual in case his pal with the shotgun wanted another dance, but this time there was no excitement to keep him awake. He bolted the door shut as quiet as he could and crawled into the blankets laid out on his pallet by the stove.

There wasn’t any red glow coming from the stove this time. No fire had been lighted there since yesterday as far as he knew. But there was sound. A thump. A bump. A muffled, heartfelt curse.

Which answered that for certain sure. It wasn’t Buddy getting up to head for the outhouse that he was hearing. It was Buddy’s mama moving around again.

My, but that little ol’ woman had a mouth on her when she wanted to turn loose of it. She must have been taking lessons from a mule skinner. Maybe from a whole passel of them.

Longarm lay there and grinned into the darkness. He heard another thump as she walked into the edge of the kitchen table, then the scraping of wood on wood as she bumped into a chair and sent it skidding across the floor.

Longarm did the decent thing. He felt around on the floor until he found the cheroots and sulfur-tipped matches he’d laid out there earlier, and struck one of the matches so Angela could see her way to wherever she was going. It was either that, he figured, or Buddy was gonna be wide awake from all the commotion she was causing.

She wasn’t going to the outhouse, he quickly concluded. She was barefoot and wearing nothing but her flimsy nightdress. The robe that he’d so carefully laid where she could reach it was nowhere to be seen.

“Thanks,” she whispered, giving the offending chair a rueful look and going wide around it. Having bumped it once, she’d been pointed straight at it a second time.

“Anytime.” He held the match while Angela glanced once in the direction of Buddy’s cot—the boy’s breathing was deep and regular; he was sleeping so hard he was damn near unconscious—then opened the top of her nightdress and let the cloth slither down her body to fall in a cotton puddle at her feet.

This was the first time Longarm had seen Angela naked. She wasn’t at all bad. A mite on the skinny side, but her tits were more than a mouthful and her mound was plump and proud. She had a flat belly and slender thighs. Her ribs stood out all plain to see like the bars of one of those … the word wouldn’t come to him just then—that musical instrument they played with little hammers and danced all around between acts at the hurdy-gurdy theater shows. He frowned. Then the furrows in his brow eased. Xylophone. That was what the sons of bitches were called. Anyway, that was kind of what Angela’s ribs looked like.

It occurred to him that she’d gone and taken off the wrapping that had been tied so tight around her to protect those broken ribs the barber said she had. He supposed she must have had her reasons. Like probably not being able to breathe. He’d been wrapped up like that a time or two himself and knew how just plain miserable that cure can be.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Isn’t that kind of a silly question at the moment?” she responded.

“Yeah, I s’pose it is.” The match burned down to his fingers, and he shook it out quick before his fingernail caught fire.

“Hush now. We don’t want to wake Eric.”

“We?”

“Shhh. You’re going to make me laugh, and I don’t want to do that. It hurts.”

“Sorry. So, um, what was it that you wanted to do if it ain’t tell jokes an’ play pinochle?”

“What makes you think I don’t want to play pinochle?”

“You’d ‘a brought a lamp.”

“Actually I did want to play pinochle. But I forgot the lamp. Do you think we can think of something else instead?” Her hand was groping around in the dark. This time it wasn’t a chair she was feeling for, though. It wasn’t a chair she was finding either, although the particular part of Longarm’s anatomy that she settled on to explore in more detail was soon about as hard as the leg of a chair. “Oh, my,” she whispered. “I do like this.”

“You sure you’re feelin’ up to this?”

“I am. So are you.”

“Look, Angela, you don’t owe me a damn thing. An’ I wouldn’t want to hurt you. So whyn’t you slip back inta bed now before …”

“Shhh.” She squeezed his cock with one hand, and with the other laid a finger over his lips to hush him. “I’d shut you up with a kiss, except it would hurt too much to bend over like that. Do you mind?”

“I ain’t complaining.”

“Good. Now hold still and let me do this. Otherwise I’m afraid we’d get to thrashing around, and I don’t think I could stand much of that just now.”

“I’ll try an’ be good,” he promised, only half facetiously.

“As I recall, sir, you are very good indeed.”

Longarm chuckled. And offered no objections when Angela squatted over him with one foot planted tight against each side of him just slightly above waist level.

She touched him lightly on the flat of his chest with one hand to stabilize her balance, and with the other guided his cock while she lowered herself onto his manhood.

Angela needed no preparation. She was wet and ready before the head of his cock ever slid in between the lips of her pussy. He heard her sigh softly in the darkness as the length of him burrowed deeper and ever deeper inside until she had captured all of him within her.

“Nice,” she whispered. “So nice.”

“What, did you come here to talk the night away?” he teased.

She laughed, a little too loudly, then continued to laugh under her breath. He could feel the tiny movements and pulsations as her stomach quivered and rippled with the laughter. It was a nice feeling. Friendly, sort of. He liked it. And told her so.

“Thank you.” Slowly, stroking long and deep, she lifted herself over him and then came down again. Gently. Deeply.

“Damn but that’s nice.”

“I do agree, sir, and I do be thanking you.” She leaned forward and touched his cheek with a fond caress.

Yeah, Longarm thought, Buddy Fulton’s mama was one nice little lady. Sweet and giving. And a good screw too. Never mind what she looked like in the daytime after Cletus Terry got done beating on her. She was one very nice little woman.

Longarm lay back and let her gently draw the juices of his masculinity out of his body and into hers. He came with a sigh and a shuddering, pulsing flow, then closed his eyes and let sleep claim him. He didn’t even know when Angela left him. And if she bumped into any furniture on her way back to bed, well, this time she didn’t wake him.

Chapter 29

“Dang it, Miz Fulton, you’re in no condition to be lifting that heavy griddle. An’ believe me, you an’ Buddy don’t want to try eating what I’d cook. So you stay right there where you can get on with the business of mending while I go down to the cafe and fetch us back something. No, I ain’t gonna listen to no mumbling or fussing about this. My mind is made up on the subject.”

“If you insist.”

“I do.”

“In that case, Mr. Long, could I ask you for some tea today?”

“You don’t like coffee?”

“Not really.”

He’d been bringing coffee right along and had never thought to ask if she liked it. Hell, everybody liked coffee, right? Well, almost everybody. So tea it would be today. And coffee. The thought of starting the day with a dainty little old cup of dishwater tea instead of a good stout mug of coffee was too awful to contemplate.

“I’ll bring you some tea. What about you, Buddy?”

“Could I have a pork chop?”

“You can have as many of ‘em as you like. What’ll it be?”

The boy’s eyes became wide with the prospect. Pork chops? As many as he liked? “Two pork chops?”

“Three if you’d ruther. It don’t make no nevermind to me, son.”

Buddy grinned. “Three pork chops then. And some fried taters. And some hominy. I love hominy. And some …”

“Eric!” his mother warned.

“It’s all right, Miz Fulton. He can have anything he wants. I said so. Only thing is, whatever he takes, that’s what he’s gotta finish. I won’t be carrying the stuff up here just for him to waste.”

Angela subsided. So did Buddy’s enthusiasm. “I have to clean my plate?”

“Dam right you do.”

“Then maybe you should make it two pork chops. And not so much taters and hominy. What do you think?”

“I think you’re gonna have you a good breakfast. Miz Fulton, how ‘bout you?”

Her request was considerably more modest than her son’s had been. Tea, toast, maybe a little jam if it wasn’t too much trouble.

He’d just order up three hearty breakfasts, Longarm figured, and Angela and Buddy could work out between them who got around what. He made a mental note of what he needed, then picked up his Stetson and unbolted the shanty door.

The door hadn’t more than swung open before there was the booming report of a shotgun blast, and the door kicked back on its hinges under the thundering impact of the shotgun charge. Sometime since last night, Longarm thought even as he was swinging into action, the guy with the two-shot gun had gone and gotten himself some real shotgun shells. He wasn’t loaded for duck hunting this morning.

“Lower. No, scoot bac: just a little bit. That’s better.” Longarm’s first concern was for Angela and Buddy. He had the both of them lying on his pallet with the protective bulk of the iron stove between them and the shotgun outside. A heavy shotshell pellet fired at close range can punch clean through the sort of thin lathing that the Fulton shanty was made from, and he didn’t want either one of these innocents hurt any further on his account.

He put them in the safest place he could find inside the house, then dragged the wood box over to shield them from the side. He stuffed a pillow underneath the stove to more or less close in the gap between the iron legs, then covered the woman and the boy with the quilt he’d slept under. A good quilt can stop a partly spent shotgun pellet. Maybe. Often enough to be worth the effort now anyway.

“Both of you lay still. I don’t wanta have to think about what my target is. If I see something move I wanta know I’m free to fire. Do you understand that? It ain’t a matter of who’s brave or who ain’t. It’s a matter of can I shoot without worrying about you two. An’ that can be the difference between me living or me dying. I ain’t being a hero ‘bout this. I’m bein’ selfish. An’ I wanta stay living so I can keep right on bein’ that way. You understand that. Buddy? Miz Fulton?”

He waited until he got a nod of understanding from each of them, then draped the quilt over on top of them, covering even their heads so as to give them as much protection as was possible.

“Wait here an’ don’t move. I’ll be back quick as I can be, but I don’t know how long that’s gonna be an’ won’t make you no promises that I might not be able to keep. Just you both mind, you stay here till I come fetch you. That way we’ll all be safe.”

He touched Angela on the shoulder and gave Buddy a poke on the upper arm, then palmed his Colt and eased up beside the open doorway.

The door itself had been torn up pretty good by the shotgun blast. The thing was definitely in need of repairs. Better a slab of gray, weathered wood than Custis Long’s belly, though. Doors would be easier to replace.

He stood there for a moment and looked around the room. He saw what he wanted and, keeping well back from the door frame, made his way across the room to fetch it.

At the least, he figured, Angela’s robe was going to need laundering when this thing was over with. Well, he’d pay for the washing. The point was to be alive so he could pay.

He held his .44 ready in one hand, and with the other shook the robe out so it dangled full length to the floor. Then, with a sweep of his arm, he floated the dark green robe out the door. The garment sailed out like a ghost riding on a breeze.

The shotgun boomed again, and Longarm burst through the doorway at full speed. One charge of pellets smacked into the wall of the house just before Longarm flew out. Another punched into the wood just behind him as the gunman reacted without taking time for careful aim.

With both barrels expended Longarm was free to look for cover. Otherwise he’d have had to hit the ground and hope he could keep ahead of the shotgunner’s swinging muzzles.

He trampled clean over Angela’s fluttering robe and legged it around the corner of the shack long before the ambusher would have had time to reload. He ducked into a crouch and squeezed in between Peppy’s lean-to shelter and the back of the house. He still hadn’t had a chance to see where it was the shotgunner was hiding. And he didn’t want that information to come as any surprise when he did figure it out. Better to be cautious now even when he thought the shotgunner should be out of sight.

The Fulton place was one of a handful of similar shacks that had been built without pattern along the banks of the sluggish creek that passed through the Cargyle canyon. Longarm slipped around to the back of the place next door, and eased forward along its side wall until he could peer around the front corner and look for the shotgunner.

There wasn’t much to see. Another small clutch of shacks on the far side of the railroad tracks. A well with a rock wall around it and a windlass and bucket mounted overhead. An abandoned wagon box with weeds growing out of it. Peppy’s cart beside the Fulton place—Longarm had just run right by that cart without so much as noticing it was there—and across the way a trash heap that seemed to consist mostly of broken whiskey bottles.

There was no sign of the man with the shotgun. The guy might well have given up and run away by now. He’d done that last night. But then it is easier to get away from someone at night. In broad daylight he might figure he was committed and would have to stick through this to the end.

Longarm concentrated on examining every detail within his line of sight, no matter how insignificant it might seem at the moment. He let his unconscious mind work on that while at a conscious level he thought through what little he knew or could assume here. For one thing, this time it hadn’t been any accident that the gunman ran into him. This time the SOB had been lying in wait outside the Fulton house. This time the guy knew perfectly good and well where he could expect Longarm to appear come morning. The fact that there was only one door leading in or out had made it ridiculously easy for him.

So this time there was no possibility that it was an impulse sort of thing. It wasn’t some guilt-ridden fugitive seeing a federal deputy approach and wrongly concluding that because Longarm was there Longarm just had to be after him. That sort of thing happened fairly often. But not this time.

No, this time it was cold, it was deliberate, and it was premeditated. This time if Longarm took the man alive, there was a good chance he would hang for his trouble.

Longarm wondered if the shotgunner knew that. Probably. And if he did, then … That wagon box. An intuitive jolt leaped from Longarm’s unconscious into the forefront of his thoughts. In the wagon box across the road there were weeds growing high at the back of the box and all along two of the other sides. But along the near side and toward the front, up toward where there was a gap in the old and broken side boards, there were no weeds. Why? Was there some good reason why weeds would be growing everywhere else inside that wagon box except there? Or had weeds been growing there, and now were they being crushed to the earth by the presence of a body lying atop them?

There probably could be fifty perfectly good reasons why a weed wouldn’t want to grow on that spot over there. Longarm didn’t believe a one of them. His bet was that he’d found his gunman.

And while shotgun pellets will often break through lathing, so will .44 slugs punch through old planking. Not always, but sometimes. And hell, .44 cartridges are cheap. A lot cheaper than blood.

Longarm reached into his pocket and got a handful of loose cartridges in his left hand, then triggered two shots into the seemingly empty wagon box, aiming his first shots carefully into the gap toward the front where he thought those shotgun blasts might’ve come from.

He fired twice and reloaded, fired twice more and quickly reloaded, fired twice again and started to reload.

Six shots. If the shotgunner thought he was empty …

A figure popped into view as abruptly as one of those spring-loaded jack-in-the-box things jumping out at a child.

Longarm flattened himself against the side of the house where he was standing. A spray of buckshot splintered the dried-out wood, stinging Longarm’s wrist but doing no harm.

The sonuvabitch was quick. Lordy, he was quick. He had fired and was skeedaddling for cover about as quick as a man could blink.

Longarm snapped a shot at him, but couldn’t tell if he’d connected or not.

The shotgunner reached the protection of one of the houses across the way, and swung around to throw another load of buck toward Longarm.

Longarm had no idea where that blast went, but it wasn’t close enough to worry about.

The scattergun was empty now. But it wouldn’t stay that way more than a few seconds. Longarm took advantage of the time he had and dashed across the road and over the railroad tracks.

Too long. It was taking him too long, and he was exposed and vulnerable. Some inner sense or timing sent up a warning flag, and he dropped to the ground, rolling, an instant before the reloaded shotgun roared. A bee swarm of lead pellets cut through the air above him, and he scrambled on all fours for the cover of the trash mound.

Another blast from the shotgun sent shards of glass cascading through the air like a rainstorm of diamonds.

The SOB had plenty of shells with him today, Longarm reflected. And plenty of determination too.

Well, he was sensible to go at it that way, everything considered. For Longarm had recognized him by now. It was that miserable little shit of an ex-con who’d braced Longarm in the saloon yesterday. And who’d been let out of jail last evening, dammit.

If Longarm could’ve reached Harry Bolt’s throat right then, he would have strangled the shithead. And that just to get his attention. After that, by damn, he’d hurt the idjit.

So far Longarm didn’t know the little bastard’s name. But it wouldn’t be so hard to figure out. A talk with the warden up at Canon City would probably clear that up. And it didn’t really matter who the guy was anyway. The point was that Longarm knew him. There was no backing down for the ex-con now. He was committed to this until either he or Longarm lay dead on the ground.

Longarm braced himself, then burst onto his feet with the Colt barking in his fist.

Chapter 30

Longarm’s third shot, hastily thrown—but not wildly; there was a difference—ripped into the shotgunner’s elbow, slamming his arm backward and dragging the aim of the shotgun with it so that the charge of deadly buckshot intended for Longarm went harmlessly wide.

The scattergun was too heavy and cumbersome for the man to manage one-handed. He tried, but quickly realized the futility of the attempt and threw the gun down. His right elbow shattered and his right arm useless, he clawed for the Navy Colt with his left hand.

“Stop, dammit. You don’t got a chance,” Longarm shouted.

The ex-con was solid grit. Longarm didn’t particularly admire that in the son of a bitch. But he sure had to admit it was there. The man dragged iron left-handed and fumbled to draw the hammer back.

“Drop it right now or I shoot,” Longarm warned.

The man managed to cock the revolver and shakily tried to take aim.

“I mean it. No more chances.”

The man stared over his sights into Longarm’s cold eyes.

He had no choice, dammit. He really had no choice. Longarm fired a fourth round and a fifth. His sixth and final cartridge was unnecessary. The fourth impacted square on the ex-con’s breastbone, driving lead and splinters of bone into his racing heart. The fifth shot took him in the side of the neck, severing the big artery there and sending a bright spray of blood briefly into the air until the sudden loss of pressure slowed the flow to a trickle. By then it didn’t matter anyway. By then the man was face-down in the blood-soaked dirt, his eyes glazing and his limbs twitching and jerking in random spasms while his bowels and kidneys emptied. The stench of his shit mingled with the copper odor of the blood to form the peculiarly ugly stink of sudden death.

Longarm stood upright, weary now despite the early hour, and by long habit reloaded his Colt before he walked cautiously forward to make damn sure this man would no longer be gunning for him.

Before he had time to reach the body, doors began opening all around, and within seconds there was an inquisitive crowd beginning to grow. Longarm for the most part ignored them. He had little but contempt for the mindless assholes who were drawn to the sight of another man’s blood.

“You. Boy.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Rick, isn’t it?”

The boy acted like he wasn’t sure if he should be pleased that this deadly visitor remembered him or not. He swallowed hard and nodded.

“D’you still have that wagon?”

“I can get it.”

“Do that, boy. I want to hire you to haul something for me.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.”

Rick hurried off, and Longarm shouldered through the crowd of people without acknowledging any of them.

He knelt beside the body, careful to keep from getting any of the bright scarlet blood on his pants legs, and checked through the dead man’s pockets.

Interesting, he thought. Damned interesting.

When he’d booked this man into Harry Bolt’s jail yesterday afternoon the fellow, who’d stubbornly refused to give his name, had had damn little in the way of possessions. And while no one, certainly not the ex-con, had ever exactly said so, Longarm had gotten the distinct impression that what he had on and with him was all he owned. He would have come out of Canon City—if Canon City it was—with the gun and clothes he’d had when he was processed in and with ten silver dollars to see him on his way.

Yesterday he’d owned the gun, the clothes, and four dollars and—if Longarm remembered right—fourteen cents.

Today he had the gun and the clothes, twelve .38 rimfire cartridges loose in his right-hand pants pocket, eight shotgun shells marked single-ought size on the wadding, and cash totaling 187 dollars and ninety-six cents. Longarm counted it twice to make sure.

If he had to guess—and he supposed he did because this prick wasn’t going to tell him—sometime between when Longarm booked him into the jail and this morning when he met his maker, the man had been paid two hundred dollars and handed a shotgun. And told to go perform a job. Longarm could well imagine what that job of work was supposed to be.

During the interim the guy had spent, what, seventeen dollars? No, sixteen and change, Longarm amended when he thought about it a little more. Exactly how much didn’t matter. Plenty enough anyway for a box of .38s, a box of 12-gauge single-0 buckshot, and an evening of good times.

Longarm stood again and stared down for a moment at the curiously deflated-looking corpse at his feet. Sixteen dollars’ worth of good times. He kind of doubted it’d been worth it.

The boy Rick pulled up with the wagon, driving his team through the crowd without much regard for giving the men time to get out of the way, and brought the cobs to a halt close to Longarm.

“You, mister, and you. Give me a hand here. We’re gonna load the dead man into this wagon. You take the feet, if you please. You, mister, you grab hold of his hand there. I’ll get the other’n. Hold your horses steady now, Rick. They’re apt to booger once the dust settles an’ they get a sniff of the blood. Steady now. Steady. That’s good, thanks.”

Longarm gave the men who’d helped him a nod of thanks while he made short work of latching the end gate of the wagon in place.

The movement of the body caused some more fluids to be released, and blood began to trickle out of the back of the cargo box. A weak-stomached spectator found that somewhat more than he could handle for some reason and began puking in the grass. The sour smell of his vomit set off a couple others who were standing close by. As far as Longarm was concerned, it’d serve them right if it happened to all of them, but in fact those three were the only ones to show any distress because of the mayhem that had taken place.

“You know the Cargyle jail, Rick? I want you to take me there,” Longarm said as he climbed onto the wagon’s driving box.

Rick sent an unhappy glance over his shoulder toward the load he was carrying. But a job was a job. And the dead guy was already bleeding all over the place. Rick was going to have to wash the wagon out now whether he completed the job or not. “Yes, sir,” he said, and shook his lines to set the team into motion.

Longarm stopped by the Fulton place as they rolled past it, and roused Angela and Buddy from hiding. It appeared breakfast was going to be later than he’d figured, but he expected they would forgive him for the delay.

Then the wagon rolled on. Longarm reached for a cheroot and, his hand steady when he applied the match, settled back on the unpadded seat while the boy Rick took care of the driving.

Chapter 31

The jail was empty this morning. Not even Longarm’s pal the coal miner was in residence at the moment. Longarm scowled for a moment. Then grunted. “Back this thing up, will you? Right into the doorway there, just as close as you can get it.”

Rick gave him a strange look, but did as Longarm asked. There was no real ditch beside the road to have to negotiate, just a shallow depression that would more or less channel snowmelt and rainwater runoff along the side of the road. The boy swung the wagon away, and backed the team into place with a fair degree of skill.

“That’s good,” Longarm said when the back of the wagon box was very nearly close enough to the stone wall of the jail to bump into it. “Hold ‘em there.”

Again the boy’s look was questioning. But he didn’t voice the questions he so obviously wanted to ask.

While Rick held the horses steady, Longarm unlatched the low tailgate and dropped it. Without ceremony he reached in and took hold of the dead man’s ankle. One good yank and the body slithered out of the wagon and over the edge to fall in a bloody tangle directly in the doorway of the Cargyle jail.

“But …” Rick saw the look in Longarm’s eye and clamped down hard on whatever protest he might have made. The boy looked quickly away. Longarm walked around to the passenger side of the wagon and climbed onto the box. “Let’s go.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. Let’s go. Back down to Cletus Terry’s saloon.” He reached inside his coat for another cheroot.

“But …” The kid glanced unhappily over his shoulder. Not that he could see the dead man lying on the stone doorstep back there. That sight would have been obscured by the bed of the wagon. But what he could not see he could all too readily imagine. And what he could imagine was not pleasant to see.

“Don’t worry about it, son,” Longarm said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Somebody will come along an’ notice before it starts to stink too bad.”

The boy swallowed hard and looked like he might well follow the example of those grown-ups who’d already donated their breakfasts to the weeds. He got a mite pale and sweaty around the forehead, but was able to control the queasiness. “Y-yessir,” he managed. He shook the lines out and wheeled his team back down the canyon toward the gate.

Rick seemed mighty grateful once they reached the saloon and he could get rid of his passenger. Longarm paid him a full dollar for his services—probably it was the hardest money the kid had ever earned—and let him go without the embarrassment of any thanks.

Terry’s saloon, Longarm was fairly surprised to see, was open and, despite the hour, doing a thriving business. Longarm kind of thought if he put his mind to it real extra hard he might be able to work out what had given everybody such a thirst so early in the day.

It occurred to him that he’d forgotten something thus far this morning, so he walked over to the cafe and arranged for the helpful fellow there to carry breakfast to Angela and Buddy Fulton. Then Longarm went back to the saloon and ambled inside.

The buzz of the dozens of separate conversations going on at once all stopped abruptly at his entrance.

“Good morning, gents,” he said pleasantly enough. He looked the crowd over as he made his way to the bar.

Instead of serving up the usual beer and rum crooks, though, the daytime bartender told him, “Mr. Terry would like to talk with you.”

“Oh?”

“The night bartender told him what you said.”

“All right, thanks.”

“He’s in the back. He said if you were to come in …”

“Tell Mr. Terry for me, please, that I’ll be at my usual table. Not that I don’t trust him, of course. But I’m gettin’ kinda tired of being shot at in this town an’ don’t want to take no more chances. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“Yes, sir. Do you, um, still want that beer now?”

“No, but I’d take a coffee if you got any.”

“I’ll get it for you right away.”

Longarm dragged a chair into the corner and leaned against the wall there. The bartender brought the coffee to him, and a small plate of cold ham and crackers too, then disappeared into the back of the place. The barman returned after a couple of minutes, and in another couple of minutes Clete Terry came out with Harry Bolt following close on his heels.

The two helped themselves to seats directly in front of Longarm.

“Tim told me you’re wanting—I believe the word he used was ‘restitution,’ Long.”

“That was the word, all right. But it ain’t me that oughta be entitled to the recompense.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you’re expecting me to pay some damn tart like that—whatever the hell her name is—for slapping her around a little?” Terry blurted out.

Longarm smiled at him. And Bolt dug an elbow into his ribs. Cletus Terry coughed into his fist and looked uncomfortable.

“Two hundred,” Terry said abruptly.

Longarm’s original idea had been to extract a decent year’s wage from this asshole. Three hundred sixty dollars, say. That would have been fair payment, he figured. And more than enough for Angela and Buddy to leave Cargyle with if that was what they chose to do.

But now, after this morning, and with the knowledge that whatever amount was finally paid would actually be coming out of Harry Bolt’s pocket …

“Five hundred,” he said without taking time to think over the change.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“If you say so. But it’s what I’ll recommend the lady accept. Not a penny less.”

“Three hundred,” Terry countered.

“Six,” Longarm said.

“Three fifty.”

“Seven fifty.” Longarm’s arms were folded and his eyes half closed.

“You son of a bitch.”

“Eight hundred.”

“Quit dicking around with this, the both of you,” Bolt snarled. “Long, you asked for five hundred to begin with.”

“That’s right, I did.”

“Clete, go get the man five hundred out of the safe.”

“But, Harry …”

“Do it!”

Well, Longarm hadn’t particularly wondered which of them was in charge here.

Cletus Terry didn’t look real happy. But he got up and headed in the direction of the back room.

“Terry,” Longarm called out to him before he’d gone more than a few paces. “That’s five hundred the lady will be wanting. And a public apology, nice an’ loud, that I want to hear.”

Terry looked at Bolt. Who merely nodded.

The saloon keeper cussed some, but kept most of it under his breath. He went on toward the back room, leaving Longarm and Harry Bolt alone.

Before Longarm had time to speak Bolt was already leaning forward to explain. “I owe you an apology, Long. You know that don’t come easy to me, but I do. I bought a sad story is what it is. The son of a bitch convinced me. He had to be free last night to see his daughter and keep her from making a big mistake. That’s what he claimed. He said he’d come here straight from Canon City to find and help his girl. Said he hadn’t seen her in fourteen years. Said that was how long he’d been inside. He sounded so plausible, hell, I should have known better. Anyone should have known better. But I didn’t. I bought it and he left my jail laughing up his sleeve, I’m sure. Said he’d be there when I opened up first thing this morning. After all, it wasn’t much of a charge you had against him. It wasn’t like he’d actually done anything. Just threatened to. You and me have done worse than that to each other every time we’ve seen each other for, what, eight, nine years now and neither one of us has gone to jail over it. I didn’t think there was any harm in letting him go take care of his daughter. If he even had a daughter. Now this morning I hear he tried to kill you. And had a bunch of cash on him when you checked him out. He only had four dollars or so in his pockets when he left my jail yesterday evening. He even asked me for a loan to help him out. I didn’t go that far, of course, but I can tell you he didn’t have much on him then. How much was he carrying this morning?”

Longarm told him.

Bolt shook his head. “Near two hundred. And a whole night to spend part of it. He must have been paid two, maybe two hundred fifty dollars for the job then. I really do owe you an apology. And you have it, Long. I’m sorry. I am deeply, truly sorry that that happened this morning. It’s my fault.”

Longarm was taken completely aback by the apology. There were many things he might have expected this morning from Harry Bolt. An apology wasn’t among them. Hell, an apology wouldn’t have made his long list of the thousand possibilities most likely.

“And if you’re wondering if I might be the one who hired him for the job, well, I can’t blame you for thinking it,” Bolt went on.

“Actually, Harry, that never crossed my mind.”

“No? Shit, Long, I feel practically hurt that you wouldn’t think of me. You know I hate your damn guts.”

“Sure you do, Harry. An’ I hate yours. But what’s that got to do with anything? I never thought of you for the job because it ain’t your style. You’d shoot me yourself—or try to—if you thought it needed doing. I don’t doubt that for a minute. But pay somebody else for the job? I can’t see that, Harry. Shit, it’d cost you almost as much to hire somebody as it woulda cost to pay off Mrs. Fulton. As much as it woulda cost if that imbecile Terry knew how to act human today. An’ then you’d have somebody walkin’ around with knowledge he could hold against you afterward besides. No, Harry, I can’t see you for hiring that fella to come after me. You’re smarter than that.”

“Why, thank you, Custis. Coming from you I take that as a high compliment.”

“Well, it ain’t intended as one. Just a simple truth.”

“So do you have any ideas about who might have wanted you killed here?”

“Besides you and Clete Terry, you mean?” Longarm shook his head. “Can’t think of a soul. Not one.”

Bolt pursed his lips and pulled at his chin with the fingers of both hands, tugging and stretching the skin there like he was pulling taffy. “I don’t suppose the man could have stolen that money and shotgun,” he mused aloud. “Then went looking for you for the same reason he braced you yesterday. Pure meanness and a big hate for marshals.”

“We’re talkin’ about human beings here, Harry. That makes anything possible. But I got to tell you that I ain’t no believer in coincidence. An’ him just happening to luck into a score that’d include a shotgun—that’d stretch things pretty damn far, wouldn’t it?”

“Just a thought,” Bolt said. “I think maybe …” They were interrupted by a clanging on a stove lid over by the bar.

“Listen up, everybody,” Clete Terry was announcing in a loud voice. “I been asked to make an apology about something. A public apology. So all right, damn it. Here goes.”

Longarm lighted a cheroot and leaned back to listen to what Mr. Terry had to say on the subject of how to treat women. Even the fallen variety.

Chapter 32

Longarm gave Angela the five hundred dollars in gold coins—he practically had to beat her up himself in order to get her to accept the payment—and a complete rundown on the apology Cletus Terry had made before the saloon full of local men.

“This is enough for Eric and me to get a start somewhere where they don’t know … you know … somewhere fresh,” she said, obviously in awe of the amount of money that she held now in her lap.

“That’s kinda what I was hoping you’d want to do,” Longarm admitted.

Angela smiled. Her bruises were still horridly discolored and her face was lumpy and swollen. But there was nothing wrong with her eyes, and Longarm found that he liked it when he saw her smile reach them. “I’m a good seamstress, you know. Really and truly good. With this much money to start with I could set up a shop. Not just another shop catering to ladies, though. There are lots of them everywhere you go. I could make fancy clothes for children. I’m very, very good at that anyway. And I think there might be a good market for that. You know. Something that not everyone is doing. What do you think, Mr. Long?”

“Sounds fine to me. You’d want to set up someplace where there’s lots of rich folks.”

“Denver?”

“Maybe. Central City might be better. Lots of money there. And it’s close enough that the swells from Denver would take the train out to shop an’ buy from you if you was to advertise in the Denver newspapers. Make it, you know, special because of the trip involved. Make it a big deal goin’ out there to get the very best in the way of fancy kids’ duds.”

Angela was beaming now. She clapped her hands in excitement. “This sounds wonderful. Eric? What do you think, dear?”

“Can we take Peppy and my cart?”

She gave Longarm a questioning glance, and he quickly nodded. Hell, it wouldn’t cost but a few dollars to haul a pony and cart along with them on the train. Angela had money enough for that and more now.

“Of course we’ll take Peppy, darling.”

The boy’s enthusiasm was quick to join in with his mother’s once he had that promise in hand. But then with kids like Rick for pals in Cargyle, it was obvious Buddy wouldn’t be leaving anything very dear behind when he shook off the dust of this place.

“And what about you, Mr. Long?”

“Oh, I’ll be pulling out soon too. No real point in stayin’ now. I don’t know who it is that was wantin’ me gunned down, but odds are I never will know now. His hired man couldn’t do the job, an’ I reckon he ain’t man enough to try it his own self. I sure ain’t gonna sit around here makin’ a target of myself while I wait for him to get his nerve up. I got better things to do than that. No, I got done what I needed to here. I’ll stay over one more night, then pull out tomorrow.”

“Will I, that is to say, will we see you again? In Denver perhaps?”

“If you like, Miz Fulton, an’ if you’re feeling up to the travel, I don’t see why we couldn’t take the train together as far as Denver. Then when you get settled in Central City, or wherever it is you decide you want to go, you could, like, drop me a note to say where you are. Y’know? And I could maybe stop in sometime. If that’d be all right.”

Buddy put his approval on the plan immediately. And vocally. Angela endorsed it as well, but with a look she kept carefully hidden from her son.

“Eric, do you feel up to getting dressed and running an errand?” she said to him.

The boy seemed a mite reluctant to give up his recuperation period. After all, any kid likes to be waited on and fussed over. But with the prospect of moving to a fancy town like Central City—and with Peppy too—he abandoned his invalid status readily enough and hopped out of bed. After all, he hadn’t been very badly wounded by those shotgun pellets. It was the status much more than any pain that had kept him bedridden since.

“I want you to run down to Mr. Tankerson’s store. Tell him he can come make an offer on the things we won’t be taking with us. And mind you tell him he can make part of the payment in kind. We’ll be needing crates and packing goods, things like that. That will make it more attractive to him, knowing he can render a part payment in materials. Oh, and you will need to ask someone, Mr. Martinez, I think, about what we will need for Peppy’s travel. If we have to carry hay and water or if we will need ropes to tie him in place with. Gracious, there is so much I don’t know about travel.” A cloud of sadness crossed her battered face. “Your father always used to take care of everything like that, you know.”

Neither Angela nor Buddy had ever said much about the boy’s father, and Longarm hadn’t wanted to ask. Whatever the story was, it was a painful one for both of them. And apparently the man was dead, and not just a runaway who’d grown tired of the responsibilities of heading a family.

Longarm stood and, stretching, gave Buddy a wink. Angela had things under control here now, and Longarm was just underfoot.

Besides, the two of them had had their breakfast this morning, but Longarm never had gotten around to eating yet today. He figured he could walk down to the cafe—it was lunchtime and soon would be past that—for a bite. Then maybe he’d drop over to the saloon for something to settle his meal with.

After all, for the past couple days he’d been sitting there with a warm beer in front of him but hadn’t allowed himself a drop to drink. The way he saw it he was damn well entitled now if he wanted a shot to warm his belly and maybe a beer to chase that with.

He said his goodbyes—neither Angela nor Buddy seemed to notice that he was leaving, they were so wrapped up in their own excited plans—and wandered out into the sunlight of the early afternoon.

Chapter 33

Longarm sat in his usual spot—hell, he’d been in that same chair so much lately that anything else would’ve felt unnatural—with an empty shot glass and a half-full beer in front of him.

The rotgut whiskey still tasted like wildcat piss, but the beer was going down mighty nice. He lighted up one of his own good cheroots and leaned back to enjoy himself.

Even the sight of Harry Bolt and Clete Terry down at the far end of the bar wasn’t enough to make him unhappy. Not now. This business in Cargyle was over and done with as far as he was concerned. He’d done everything here that he had to, and he could leave with a clear conscience. And with Angela Fulton, who was a sweet little woman even if she wasn’t much of a looker. Once she healed up and got to feeling herself again he just might … no, he damn sure would go and look up her and Buddy in Central City. He liked the kid and he liked the mother and he could enjoy seeing more of the both of them. Why, sometime maybe they could all take one of those excursion trains that they ran down to … Almost without conscious thought he set the beer down onto the table and sat upright.

The young man who’d just walked in didn’t fit with this crowd somehow. It wasn’t his age. Lots of mining men start out young. In fact probably most of them. But there was something about him … he was too clean, too nicely dressed, looked too much the schoolboy to fit in here with these coal miners.

The young man paused in the doorway and looked slowly around.

That was part of it, Longarm realized. There was a wafiness about this fellow that didn’t quite fit the rest of his appearance. He was dressed in a nicely tailored and fairly new suit with a spanking-clean celluloid collar and a carefully tied necktie. He wore a narrow-brimmed hat in the stockman’s style, but there was something about him that prevented any possibility that he might be mistaken for a stockman. His shoes were freshly blacked, and there wasn’t a hint of sag in his stockings. All in all he was turned out as neat and tidy as a choirboy early on a Sunday morning.

Yet there was that indefinable something about him, something in the cautious way he inspected the room before he committed himself to it, that commanded Longarm’s attention.

Longarm looked across the room to where Bolt and Terry were in deep conversation about something. The two of them had their heads together, and were paying no mind to what all was going on around them.

On an impulse Longarm stood and, taking his beer with him, ambled across the room to reach the bar at just about the same time as this young newcomer did. And at the same stretch of bar as well. He stopped beside the young man and nodded to him. “Howdy.”

“Hello.”

“Buy you a beer, Steve?”

“Yes, thank you.” The fellow gave Longarm a quizzical look. “Have we met, perchance?”

“Not that I recall, no.”

“Then how …?”

“A shot in the dark.” Longarm grinned. “You should excuse the expression.”

“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t.”

“You have the advantage of me, sir.”

“Oh, yeah. So I do.” Longarm introduced himself.

“A federal officer. My, oh, my.”

“An’ you, of course, would be Steve Reese. How’s your papa, Steve?”

“He’s holding his own, Marshal. Thank you for asking.”

“I hope that treatment in—Scotland, was it?—I hope it helps.”

“You’re trying to tell me that you know all about my hopes, aren’t YOU.”

“I’m trying to tell you, Steve, that you ain’t gonna make it. There must be paper out on you in half a dozen different places.”

“Really? Am I accused of something then?”

“You know that better’n I do.”

“Federal crimes, Marshal?”

“Reckon you know that too.”

Reese smiled. “Yes, so I do. I have, shall we say, done my homework, Marshal. And if crimes were committed—which I do not admit, you understand—but if crimes were committed they do not fall under federal jurisdiction.”

“You’re a cool one, Steve.”

“No, Marshal. Merely committed to the pursuit of justice. Notice that I did not say anything about law. Law and justice are unrelated. And the course I seek, sir, is that of the just.”

“That so, is it?”

Reese nodded. “Indeed. If you want to know, Marshal, my father is an innocent man. I was there, don’t forget. Not that I was allowed to testify during the court-martial. But I was with my father through all those years. I knew. My father knew. His mistake was in his loyalty to men who weren’t worthy of the trust he placed in them. He was in charge of supply procurement, you know.”

“I heard that, yes.”

“He conducted himself honorably and with scrupulous attention to detail. Unfortunately for him there were others, officers who were in charge of the actual disbursement of those supplies, who acted in collusion with several of the Indian agents on the reservations at the time. My father saw that all appropriate materials were made available. All of it of the best possible quality too. Then others took those supplies and sold them on the civilian market. They either took them outright or in some instances replaced them with inferior goods. The Indians who were supposed to receive the supplies received useless goods. Or many times received nothing at all. It couldn’t have been done without the cooperation of both the reservation agents and the officers in charge of the actual distribution.”

Longarm grunted. What young Reese was telling him was, sadly enough, an all too common tale.

“The saddest thing of all, Marshal, is that my father knew about this. He learned about it at least eight months before charges were filed. Oh, he agonized over that knowledge. And in the end, you see, he decided that he could not bring charges against men who he regarded as his brothers. He pleaded with them to desist. He even threatened to expose them. But in his heart of hearts—he told me this himself—he knew he could never bear to ruin them.” Reese’s laugh was short and bitter. “They repaid him well for his loyalty. They falsified documents and brought charges against him. For their own crimes. I am sure, we both are sure, they believed if they did not strike first, then he would expose them as he so often threatened he would.”

“What about what he knew then? Shouldn’t that of been more’n enough of a defense for him?”

“Marshal. Please. Who would have believed him if he had tried to say anything after charges were already pending against him? It would have been taken as a craven attempt to wriggle out from under the truth.”

“So he stood there an’ took it on the chin?”

“He had no choice, Marshal. Besides, he still believed in his fellow officers. Then. He went to prison still certain that one of his brothers would yet step forward to exonerate him.” Reese snorted. “Brothers indeed. Scrupulus sons of bitches is more like it.” The handsome young man brightened and began to smile. “But say, did you know that most of them are dead now?”

“Oh, really?”

“My, yes. There’s a delightful irony in it, don’t you think?”

“I’d think that only if it happened by accident,” Longarm said.

Steven Reese shrugged. “By happenstance or misadventure, I think it hardly matters so long as the end result remains. They all deserved to die, you know. From that pompous Fetterman right on through to the last man on the list.”

“Except for your father,” Longarm said.

“Yes, of course. Except for him.”

“And you intend to see that it works out like that.”

“I never said that, did I, Marshal? Please don’t assume more than meets the eye. Surely you’ve been taught that.”

“I been taught a lotta things, Steve. Among ‘em being that murder is wrong.”

“Yes, there are wrongs. And then there are greater wrongs. Who are we to judge which among many wrongs is the greater or the lesser?”

“Me, I don’t try to. But I hear tell you sometimes take that chore upon yourself.”

“Do you have a warrant for my arrest, Marshal?”

“Well, um, no. Not exactly.”

“Then tell me, sir. Is there a point to this conversation?”

“I’d like for there to be, son. I’d sure as hell like to talk you out of this scheme of yours. I’d like to see you pull outa here and—I dunno—go visit your papa while you still can. All that money, son, it won’t buy him a day more than his appointed time. Ain’t that what the Book says? Our days are all numbered an’ there’s naught we can do to change any least bit of whatever is ordained.”

“Do you believe that, Marshal?”

“The question ain’t so much what I believe, son, as what’s true. So what is it that you believe?”

“I believe that my loyalty belongs to my father, Marshal. And to justice. Regardless of law.”

“You don’t look as hard as you are, y’know that?”

The young man smiled, making him look even younger and more boyish than before. “Yes, in fact I do know that. It has stood me in good stead too, if I do say it.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. With that meek an’ mild look on you, Steve, I bet you can walk right up to a man an’ shoot him between the eyes without him ever once thinking his time had come.”

Reese laughed, and in the sound there was an edge of hysteria, or worse, that made Longarm realize for the first time that this gentle veneer the boy wore had no more depth than the clothing on his back.

Beneath the gentle, entirely presentable surface he showed to the world, Steven Reese was crazy as hell. Murderously crazy.

“Steve, what I think I’d best do is ask you to come with me while we check an’ see are there any warrants outstanding.”

“I thought you said …”

“When I left Denver there was a lawyer, a fella name of Beckwith, who was working on getting one issued.”

“Samuel T. Beckwith?” Reese asked. “I remember him. I remember all of them. The bastards. Not good enough to shine my father’s boots, those officers. If you only knew.”

Longarm looked past Reese toward Harry Bolt, who must have sensed that something was happening here, for now he’d left the table where he’d been talking with Clete Terry and was coming toward Longarm and Reese. The small but deadly little Smith & Wesson revolver was already in his hand. Longarm gave Harry a frown and a quick shake of the head to show that he had this under control. He didn’t need any help right now.

“You won’t mind if we check with the office in Denver, will you, Steve? I’ll get a telegraph message off. We’ll have the answer in a couple hours. Then if there’s no warrant I won’t have no choice but to let you go.” Longarm didn’t mention that he would be checking for state and territorial warrants in Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska, and New Mexico as well as for the federal warrants they’d been discussing. Surely someone would have paper outstanding on Reese.

“I haven’t violated any federal laws, Marshal. We both know that. And I admit to violating no state laws either.”

“Then you an’ me will just set an’ visit for a while until my answer comes back, an’ soon as it does I’ll apologize for your trouble an’ see you on your way. Now that sounds fair, don’t it?”

Reese smiled and bobbed his head. “Yes, Marshal, I have to say that it does.”

“All right then. Let’s take care of it.”

A few feet away Harry Bolt was leaning over the bar in whispered consultation with the bartender. Harry still had the little .32 in his fist.

“If you got a gun on you, Steve, I s’pose you oughta hand it over. Nothing personal, you understand. Just routine.”

“Certainly, Marshal. And I don’t take it personally, I assure you.” The beaming young man pulled his coat open and reached into a hip pocket.

There was a sharp whipcrack of noise from behind him, and the front of Steven Reese’s face bulged outward. Blood and specks of teeth and white bone sprayed forward, settling like a scarlet mist all over Longarm and painting his clothes red. Reese’s blood was blown into Longarm’s nose and onto his lips. He could smell the sharp scent of it and taste the salt and copper flavor of it.

Young Steve Reese collapsed before Longarm like a poleaxed shoat, twitched once or twice, and then subsided save for the gurgling of fluids and gases rumbling within the corpse.

“Jesus!” someone nearby muttered, crossing himself and scurrying out of the bar into the afternoon heat.

Chapter 34

Longarm sent Angela Fulton and Buddy on to Denver and Central City without him. He left them at Pueblo and stopped there long enough to transmit two lengthy telegrams, then took the first train west to Canon City and the cold, looming presence of the state penitentiary. The warden there was an old acquaintance if not quite a close friend. Close enough, though, that Longarm could count on his help.

From Canon City Longarm returned to Pueblo and entrained north again to Denver, where Billy Vail’s clerk Henry already had part of the information Longarm needed. The rest of it would be in the hands of Sam Beckwith, who was away in Omaha. Longarm fired off a message for the prosecutor and, with Henry’s help again, launched his own search for information in the archives of the Federal Building and in the state and old territorial government records of Colorado.

Finally, almost two weeks after he’d left, he headed south again.

As before the train announced the presence of a passenger by blasting the whistle, then dropping him at the spur switch. As before Rick came out with his wagon to pick up the fare. This time, however, there was no need for him to race Buddy and Peppy for the privilege.

“I thought you was gone, mister.”

“An’ so I was. Now I’m back. D’you want my business or not?”

“I want your business, sure.”

“Then load my things in an’ let’s go.”

“Yessir.”

Now that it was familiar to him the ride to Cargyle seemed short. He had Rick drop him outside Clete Terry’s—and Harry Bolt’s—saloon.

“Are you looking for a place to stay the night, mister?”

“Not this time. I’ll tend to my business and be gone before dark, more’n likely. But don’t go off too far. I’ll be wanting a ride back out in time to catch the eight-oh-five northbound.”

“You want I should look after your saddle and bag until then, mister?”

“That’d be good, thanks.” Longarm dragged his Winchester from its scabbard strapped to his saddle, but left everything else in the boy’s wagon.

Rick eyed the rifle. “Mister, you ain’t …”

“Yes, son?”

“Never mind. Never you mind, mister.” The boy rolled his eyes and got the hell out of there quick like he thought guns might start going off at any moment.

Longarm grunted softly under his breath and went inside the saloon.

“I can’t say I expected to see you back here, Marshal,” the daytime bartender said, greeting him.

“In my line, friend, a man never knows.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where I can find Chief Bolt, would you?”

“Yes, sir, he and Mr. Terry are in the back.”

“Ask the chief to join me out here, would you, please?”

“Sure thing, Marshal. You want a beer or anything while you’re waiting?”

“No, thanks, I’m fine.”

The bartender nodded and, first checking to make sure no one needed his immediate attention at the bar, went into the back of the saloon.

Longarm wandered over to the corner where he’d spent so many hours before. The table he was used to had been dragged a short distance away, and the chairs were not arranged to his liking. He left the table where it was, but found the chair he favored and pulled it over against the wall, dropping into it with the Winchester laid across his lap.

Harry Bolt came out in a minute or so, Clete Terry with him. The two men stopped at the bar to draw beers for themselves, then carried those and a plate of pickled eggs over to join Longarm in the corner.

“If this is about that Reese boy, Long, my story hasn’t changed. I told you the truth. I seen he was reaching for a gun and didn’t know he was fixing to hand it over to you peaceful. Which maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. So I shot. I did it to protect a fellow peace officer, and I’d do it again. I suppose, though, you’ll be wanting a written statement to that effect. Is that what you’ve come for?”

“Actually, Harry, what I come here about don’t have nothing to do with Steve Reese’s murder.”

Bolt raised an eyebrow and began to look a mite prickly. “I don’t much care for your use of the word murder there, Long.”

“That’s all right, Harry. You’re entitled to your feelings on the subject.” Longarm stuck a cheroot between his teeth and flicked a match into flame. He held the flame to the end of the cigar and took his time about building a coal, then shook the match out and tossed it toward a cuspidor in the corner. He kept the cheroot in his teeth and laid his hand onto the grip of the Winchester.

“If you’d be more comfortable,” Longarm offered, “I could call you Dennis instead of Harry.”

“What?”

“Dennis Connor O’Dell is the long of it, I believe.”

“Who are you talking about, Long? Have you gone crazy in the head here?”

“All these years. Just think of it, Dennis. You’ve gotten away with it for all these years.”

“I don’t know …”

“Yes, you do, Dennis. What happened? Did Harry Bolt serve that warrant on you? It was the last he ever signed out. We looked it up. And it was never returned— Paper on Dennis Connor O’Dell, George Timothy Ward, and James Leon Fowler. Harry Bolt, the real Harry Bolt that is, was never seen again afterward. Not by anybody who’d known him before, though someone calling himself Harry Bolt showed up in southern Colorado soon afterward. George Ward was killed a couple years ago in Arizona. Did you know that? And James Leon Fowler died right here about two weeks back. I know because I killed him myself. More to the point, Dennis—or if you wouldn’t mind—Harry. I’ve got in such a habit of calling you by that name that it’s hard to quit now that I know different. Anyway, that was your old pard who showed up here. What was it, Harry? Dennis? Did he come here by accident an’ just happen to recognize you? Or had he kept track of you all that time till he got outa the pen?”

“I don’t know what you’re …”

“Of course you know, Dennis. Harry. You’re the one who set Fowler up to kill me, of course. Shit, it was the smart thing for you to do. Which I finally recognized once I peached to what had happened all those years ago. The real Harry Bolt arrested you but somehow you managed to kill him. And, instead of staying on the run as Dennis O’Dell with a price on your head, you took Harry Bolt’s papers an’ pretended you was him. Got away with it all this time too, and would’ve got away with it for who knows how much longer except all of a sudden there was two different threats that could expose you.

One was James Leon Fowler, who knew you from back when. The other was Steven Reese, who didn’t know you at all. With Fowler it was easy. You turned him outa the jail that night, handed him a shotgun, an’ sicced him onto me. Like I said, Harry. Dennis. It was smart. No matter what Fowler did, you won. If he killed me, then I wasn’t no threat to learn the truth from Reese, who you already knew was supposed to be on his way to find Harry Bolt. An’ if I killed Fowler, then Fowler wasn’t no threat to expose you as Dennis O’Dell. So you came out ahead no matter what happened.

Another thing I’ve figured out this past couple weeks, Harry—excuse me, Dennis—is that if I’d delivered the message an’ gone right back to Denver there wouldn’t have been no problem for you. Or anybody else. Young Reese would have come here, tracked you down, and found out you didn’t look anything like his Harry Bolt. So he would have gone off looking someplace else for the officer he’d known when he was a kid. But thanks to your muscle-headed friend there, I hung around town a few days longer than I otherwise woulda, an’ so I was a danger to you. What if Reese came an’ I found out he didn’t recognize you? That’s what happened, of course. I’d of let it all pass after Fowler was dead except for Reese walking in here an’ looking around.” Longarm smiled around the end of his cheroot. “Looked right at you, Harry. An’ right on by. He’d of reacted if he’d seen Harry Bolt in this room here. But he didn’t. All he’d seen was a bunch of strangers. That’s why he had to die, Harry. That’s why you had to kill him before he could complain to me about not finding Harry Bolt here in Cargyle where Harry Bolt was s’posed to be all this time.”

“You’re crazy, Long. You been drinking Chinese medicines or something.”

“Really, Dennis? You’ll swear to that?”

“Hell, yes, I will.”

“That’s good, Dennis. Because there’s a man on his way right now who served in the army with his brother officer Harry Bolt. The man’s name is Beckwith. He’s a lawyer now. An assistant to the United States attorney in the Denver district. He says he won’t have no trouble recognizing Harry Bolt.” That part was a bit of a lie. Beckwith was still in Omaha and would be needed there for some weeks more. Billy Vail had agreed with Longarm, though, that Harry Bolt—or Dennis O’Dell—should be taken quickly, before something might spook him and make him turn rabbit on them. They hadn’t wanted to risk him getting away yet another time.

“Harry?” Clete Terry whined. “What the hell is he talking about, Harry?”

“Shut up, Clete.”

“Haven’t you been listening, Cletus? Your pal here isn’t Harry after all. He’s Dennis. And he’s still wanted on charges of mail theft, robbery, murder—there’s probably more paper still outstanding on him. But that’s all right. We got plenty of time to look it all up an’ find out just how many different jurisdictions want to file charges against him.”

“Harry? Is he telling me the truth, Harry?”

“He’s lying, Clete. He’s always wanted a chance to get back at me. Ever since I took his woman away from him years and years ago. He’s jealous of me, Clete. And I think it’s time to put a stop to this. Are you with me, Clete? Will you back me here?”

“Anything you say, Harry. You know that.”

“Kill him, Clete! Kill him now.”

Harry Bolt—Dennis O’Dell—was already moving, rolling out of his chair and placing Clete Terry’s bulk between him and Longarm.

Terry was moving too. But unlike Bolt or Longarm, Cletus Terry thought in terms of muscle and steel. He reached not for a gun but for a knife.

Longarm ignored Terry. The threat came from Bolt after all. O’Dell, dammit. Dennis O’Dell.

He pulled back the hammer of the Winchester and sent a slug into Harry Bolt’s stomach. Unfortunately for Clete Terry, the bullet had to pass through his thigh in order to reach Bolt.

Longarm didn’t stop to worry about that. He levered the Winchester and fired again. If he gave Harry Bolt time to get that shit-eating little Smith into action, Longarm was a dead man, and he knew it. Harry—Dennis—wasn’t fast, but he was hell for accurate.

Longarm quit fooling with the slow-to-load Winchester and spun out of his chair, palming his revolver as he moved.

Harry was down but he was still game. He slid underneath Clete Terry’s chair, using Terry’s body for cover.

Longarm saw the nickel flash of Harry’s gun. Longarm’s Colt roared first. A .44 slug grazed Terry, causing the big man to scream in pain, and ripped through Harry Bolt’s gun arm.

“You’re done, Harry. Give it up now.”

“Screw you, Long.”

“Leave be, Harry. There’s nothing left to fight for.”

The Smith & Wesson lay on the saloon floor, its nickel plating dulled by blood and clinging sawdust. Bolt—O’Dell—gritted his teeth and shifted his weight onto the right arm that Longarm’s bullet had shattered.

“Leave be, Harry. I’m asking you nice. Leave be.”

“The hell with you, asshole.”

He picked up the .32 in his left hand.

Longarm took careful aim. And shot him high in the forehead, his bullet neatly centered between Harry Bolt’s eyes and slightly above them.

“My God,” Cletus Terry said, turning away and vomiting in the blood and brains already on the floor there.

“Yeah,” Longarm mumbled. “There ain’t no other chance for mercy, is there?”

He looked quickly toward the men at the bar. But no one there seemed interested in joining the fuss.

He drew smoke from his cheroot deep into his lungs and slowly exhaled, then pulled the railroad-quality Ingersoll out of his watch pocket and checked the time. There was no hurry. Not now. He had plenty of time to make the four-twelve northbound. He wouldn’t have to wait for the late train after all.